Carol Rose column: Real ID - Real Nightmare

Monday

Jul 23, 2007 at 12:01 AMJul 23, 2007 at 10:15 PM

Can you imagine living in a country where you must carry an internal passport wherever you go? Does the phrase “Your papers, please” bring to mind life in authoritarian regimes like the former East Germany under the Stasi or South Africa under apartheid?

By Carol Rose

Can you imagine living in a country where you must carry an internal passport wherever you go? Does the phrase “Your papers, please” bring to mind life in authoritarian regimes like the former East Germany under the Stasi or South Africa under apartheid?

Well, this scenario is about to become a reality in Massachusetts and around the country unless we roll back the so-called “Real ID Act.” With a key vote on the act pending in the U.S. Senate this week, it’s time for Massachusetts residents to ask their leaders to reject Real ID as a real nightmare.

What’s wrong with Real ID ? Passed by Congress in 2005 without any debate whatsoever, the act mandates that every state’s Registry of Motor Vehicles create a vast new database containing Americans’ most personal information – from Social Security numbers and birthdates to copies of birth certificates (can your mother locate her birth certificate?). This information will be linked and accessible to RMV employees and others across the country. Tens of thousands of people will have access to our private information, turning Real ID into a one-stop shop for identity theft.

In addition, Real ID requires that states create a new driver’s license that contains a machine-readable component, making it easy for businesses and identity thieves to access our personal information. Bars often swipe licenses to collect personal data on customers, but that will be just the tip of the iceberg as every convenience store clerk learns to grab that information and sell it to data mining companies.

Real ID will become an “internal passport” that could be used to track and control law-abiding Americans’ movements and activities. We will be required to use the Real ID driver’s licenses to board planes and enter federal facilities. Legislation has also been proposed that would make showing a Real ID driver’s license a requirement to work, vote and obtain government benefits.

In addition, the program will cost nearly $23 billion to implement, and states are expected to pick up most of the tab on this unfunded mandate.

With all of these problems, it should come as no surprise that opposition to Real ID is growing. This year alone, 17 states passed legislation rejecting Real ID. Never before in modern American history have so many states revolted against a federally mandated program. Opposition to Real ID is coming from both the left and the right, and includes a wide range of organizations, including the Cato Institute and the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

In Massachusetts, state Sen. Richard T. Moore, D-Uxbridge, has introduced a legislative resolution opposing Real ID. At a hearing on Moore’s resolution last month, opponents of Real ID included Attorney General Martha Coakley, Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security Kevin Burke, and Registrar of Motor Vehicles Anne L. Collins. Not a single person testified in favor of the act.

U.S. Sen. John Kerry also has described Real ID as “profoundly flawed.” In a speech before the Senate last month, Kerry said that “Immigration reform is difficult enough without conditioning it on an unfeasible, unfunded mandate that states are not only unwilling but in some cases legally bound not to meet.”

It’s time for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to join the opposition to Real ID. He’ll have an opportunity to do so when the U.S. Senate considers this week whether to provide partial federal funding for Real ID as a way to induce Massachusetts and other states to drop their opposition to the scheme.

The amendment, to be introduced by Sen. Lamar Alexander. R-Tenn., would provide $300 million for states to implement Real ID.

But this drop in the bucket is little more than sucker money. Massachusetts would receive a mere $6.9 million, leaving taxpayers to pay an additional $330 million to implement the program in the commonwealth. With money already tight, Real ID will leave us with even fewer funds for vital state programs. We will likely see our driver’s licenses fees skyrocket, and find slower service, longer lines and more frequent bureaucratic snafus at the DMV.

Even in the unlikely event that Congress were to fund fully the Real ID Act, it would not solve the fundamental problems with the program. As Coakley testified, Real ID represents “a total loss of common sense” that is “almost logistically and financially impossible to execute,” that will be “counterproductive in security terms; increase the chance for falsification of documents,” and create a “horrible inconvenience to every law-abiding Massachusetts holder of a license.”

Make no mistake about it: Real ID is a real nightmare that no amount of money can fix. Kennedy and Kerry should oppose this misguided amendment and instead support efforts to reform or repeal this dangerous and unworkable program.

Carol Rose is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.

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